The Queenmaker
by CloudyDream
Summary: Wherein the firstborn of Tywin's twins is a boy; and the bastard Ned Stark brings home is a girl with purple eyes. Fourteen years later, Caesar Lannister is a man so enthralled with power he'd do anything to become king – including putting Rhaegar's daughter on the throne, with himself as her consort. Cersei/Jon, genderbent; assumes R L. Now with more Sansa Stark!
1. The Kingslayer

**The Queenmaker**

AKA, the one in which Cersei preemptively gets her wish and she's born a boy. This is a straight-on what-if, with no other major differences besides the gender-bending of two characters, even though Jon/Jenye has purple eyes for practicality's sake. Also, in the name of Making Things Simple, I hereby declare the White Walkers invasion on hold for a generation, or five.  
This story is all about the Game.

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**Act One: The Kingslayer**

**{I}**

Jamie Lannister, the first daughter and second child born to Lord Tywin Lannister and his lady wife Joanna, had been the most beautiful maid in all of the Seven Kingdoms; and no one believed that more than her twin brother Caesar.

They had been born together, Jamie's little hand curled around her brother's foot, and they had never been apart a moment since. Jamie had been watching him the first time Caesar had hold a wooden sword in the practice yard; and she had given him his first, sloppy kiss, like they'd seen Mother and Father do. They even used to dress up as each other at times, Caesar trailing his hands down the smooth satin of his sister's dress, as soft as her hair. Mother had not liked that, he remembered, tried to stop them; but then she'd died in the birthing bed and Father had gone back to King's Landing, and it had only been the two of them, alone against the world.

Once upon a time Caesar used to think they would have died together, too; but that had been a long time ago.

Jamie Lannister was four-and-ten when she died, hit by a stray arrow when her escort was ambushed by the Kingswood Brotherhood.

It had been, to Caesar a horrible trick of destiny. His bright, beautiful sister had been an excellent archer and an even better rider, more a Mormont of Bear Island than a Lannister of the Rock in that regard. Had she been born a man, Jamie would have made an even better warrior than the Dragonknight – so unlike Caesar, who had decided early on that he preferred politics to the battlefield. Yet she had been born a woman instead, forced by customs and conventions to remain inside her carriage while the assault dragged on, with no means to defend herself.

_She was born to be a queen_, Lord Tywin had told Caesar once, at the funeral, drunk on pain and sorrow, and as close to tears as his son had even seen him. He had just left King's Landing and his position as the King's Hand, ostensibly because of grief; in truth because of one too many of the King's crude remarks. She should have been queen, his father had been right about that; but in truth Caesar was glad Aerys had refused the offer when he had, because he did not think he could have suffered the thought of another man having her.

And when the Rebellion had ended with Rhaegar's blood staining the waters of the Trident, Caesar couldn't help but feel victorious, even though it had not been his war. He'd remained under locked doors for more than a year, in his luxurious rooms in the Red Keep like the hostage he was; but he'd still rejoiced when he found out that the Mad King had lost a beloved child same as his father had, could not stop the smile that'd grown on his face.

Aerys had sent for him the following day, spitting and stuttering, his eyes bright with the gleam of madness, promising him to kill him to get to Lord Tywin. Rossart had been there as well, yet another useless fool in Father's place; and Caesar had heard that last order, _burn it all_.

_A fitting end to the Targaryen dynasty_, Caesar had thought at first; and then, _I want to live_. He had thought of his sister, beautiful as she had been, and how he'd always thought they would be together in death, of his mother's spirit waiting for him; but seventeen was too young to die.

Guests and hostages alike were not trusted with swords and no blades were allowed in presence of the king, so Caesar killed Rossart with the gold chain at his throat, twisting and twisting until he felt the body go heavy in his arms. Aerys had screamed then, a loud shriek that made Caesar's blood run cold in his veins; but there'd been no one to hear him, guards and servants all sent away long before. A king he might have been, Caesar had thought then, but in the end he was only a weak, old man; and it hadn't been long before he stopped whimpering.

Aerys Targaryen fell lifeless on the stone floor of the Great Hall, in front of the Throne he'd loved so much. It was an old, ugly thing, Caesar realized, twisted and deadly; but it shined so prettily in the candlelight.

One day, he decided, it would be his.

**{II}**

Killing the Mad King made Caesar Lannister a hero.

It was a novel feeling and, altogether, not an unwelcome one.

He had never killed anyone with his own hands before, always preferring a smile and an assassin's blade to open violence; but, somehow, it was fitting for his first kill to be a king. There had been Rossart, obviously, but he did not seem to count. The piromancer had been forgotten as soon as the Lannister host had taken the city, and no one had even inquired as to his whereabouts – no one, that was it, until Caesar had made sure to share with Ned Stark the story of how Aerys had been planning to burn the city to the ground.

_Let him be king of ashes_, he repeated to Robert as well, and saw the new king's face redden under the weight of self-righteous anger. Stark even thanked him, as stiffly as he always seemed to be; but he'd been in a furious rage over the death of Elia and the young princes mere hours before, and Caesar realized that Lord Eddard's thanks were not given lightly. Robert, for his part, slapped him on the back as if they were the best of friends, laughing loudly.

"You'll have a place of honor at my wedding to the Lady Lyanna," he promised, and Caesar held back a sardonic smile at Robert's enthusiasm.

_If only it were that simple_.

Lyanna Stark was found by her brother somewhere in Dorne, guarded by what was left of Aerys's Kingsguard; and all the nobles at court were graceful enough not to point out how unusual that was.

She died in Dorne as well, from a fever that had gone untreated or so Lord Stark said; and Robert wept and drowned his grief in wine and whores. Caesar got a brief look at her body when they showed it to Robert, a glimpse of a pale, scrawny thing with a halo of beautiful, long raven hair. She wasn't beautiful, but then again, no corpse ever was. He was reminded of Jamie, so still and cold in her funeral casket, and Father whispering how she should have been queen.

_She really would have_, Caesar realized, with Lyanna Stark dead and no other suitable match; but he knew Robert Baratheon quite well by now, and he was not the sort of man he would have wanted for his sister. Far from it, he thought. _I'd have killed him first_.

It was all pointless now, the what-if and the wishful thinking; and Caesar resigned himself to observe from outside, taking notice of all the scheming and the backstabbing that went on between the noble families. He was not alone in that – Varys, the newly reinstated Maester of Whisper, also contented himself with watching as things unfolded, knowing that he wasn't in a position to be offering suggestions, not yet.

Stark had gone back to his North, back to ignoring the affairs of the kingdom as his family had done for decades; and Lord Tywin had done the same once it had been clear that there were no prominent families from the Westerlands with daughter of the right age. Jon Arryn, bless his fool's heart, suggested a Dornish family to make an amend of sort to the Martells, even going so far as to send messengers to Starfall; but there was no Dornishwoman who would have wanted to take Elia's place.

In the end it was decided that His Grace King Robert Baratheon, First of his name, would marry Lord Hightower's second daughter Alysanne, making him Mace Tyrell's good-brother and making Lord Stannis almost choke on his wine when he found out.

They were married not quite a fortnight later, in the Grand Sept of Baelor, crowds cheering their new, handsome king, the young queen radiant with the newfound happiness of a young maiden living her dream. Caesar had a place of honor at the king's own table and a spot on his Small Council, and it was all close enough to the Throne that he thought it would do nicely, for the time being.

**{III}**

Life went on, year after year. Caesar remained in King's Landing, the Master of Laws, and came to know and fear Varys and know and despise Littlefinger; both of whom played the Game of Thrones better than himself, though not quite as well as his father did.

Lord Tywin remained in the West and the two of them corresponded often enough, an arrangement that satisfied them both. Caesar admired his father more than any other man, living or dead; but their relationship lacked the warmth and affection that it'd had before Jamie's death. Things with Tyrion were strained as well – Caesar did not share his father's blinding grief and resentment and had figured out early enough just how cunning and dangerous his younger brother could be, and yet they would never really like _each_ other, as brothers were supposed to.

He never married, for the same reason it had taken Arryn so long to find Robert a bride. It was better to wait than to rush, after all; and he was never gladder for his choice to wait until the day he escorted the king to Winterfell, and laid eyes on Jeyne Snow for the first time.

It was the fourteenth year of Robert's reign, and the king had suddenly found himself in need of a new Hand. Lord Arryn was an old man, that was the talk around court, and wanted to live the last years of his life among the quiet of the Eyrie with his wife and son. The truth of things was that he'd had yet another disagreement with Robert, this time concerning the fate of the last remaining Targaryen heirs; but truths did not mean much in King's Landing.

It hadn't been a surprise to Caesar that Robert had decided to choose his old friend Ned Stark, though he did suspect Stark wouldn't last long – wholesome men did not fare well in court. The queen herself asked him to be part of the escort, with no doubt fearing the vast emptiness of the North, the cold, and the loneliness; and Caesar had thought the whole trip to be a massive waste of time up to the day they reached Winterfell.

The Great Hall was almost as big as the one in the Keep, warm and homely in a way Caesar would not have expected from a northern fortress. His seat was at the high table and still removed enough to offer some relative quiet, and for once he did not mind. Caesar observed the Starks as they walked in, Lady Catelyn, prettier than Lysa ever was, at the arm of Robert, who looked more like a buffoon than a king; Lord Eddard with a beard he hadn't worn the last time they'd seen each other, escorting Alysanne, whose eyes had lost some of their brightness over the years.

Stark's firstborn was now a young man, Caesar realized with a startle, his age made more evident by the contrast with eight-years-old Princess Lenore on his arm. The oldest girl was escorted by Steffon, blushing all the way to the table; and the second one, who walked by side with Tommen, looked enough like Lyanna that he was sure Robert must have noticed as well. There were two more boys, one who looked eight or so, and the other one a babe barely older than Orys, who had paused in front of one of the lower seats and had to be escorted by his wet nurse to his seat.

Caesar gave out a chuckle at that, amused. It was strangely endearing to him, unused as he was to see a child at a formal feast – it was not done in King's Landing, and his father hadn't done it either, not after Mother's death. He let his gaze linger on the spot where the youngest Stark had stopped, idly, and found a pair of dark purple eyes staring right back at him.

It was like looking at a ghost.

Two ghosts, in fact, Caesar decided after a while. He remembered hearing of Ned Stark's bastard daughter once or twice, in some joke Robert must have made. Something about even the most honorable of men having a weakness, or some such line, just another way for Robert to justify his own weaknesses; and usually followed from something rude about Ashara Dayne, who'd refused Arryn's offer of a marriage to Robert but _fucked all the Starks_, as the king was fond of repeating.

Caesar had _heard_ of Stark's bastard, for sure; but knowing of her and seeing the child – the woman, the young woman – were two different things altogether. He'd never forgotten Lyanna Stark, never could; not when Robert used to talk about her half the times he was drunk, not when she had looked so much like Jamie in death, small and white, like something not of this world.

And her eyes he'd never forgotten either, even though Lyanna's had been closed when he'd seen her; because he would recognize them everywhere. He remembered holding that gaze, looking into those eyes as life left them, squeezing tighter and tighter, and _tighter_.

Ned Stark's bastard daughter had Targaryen eyes.

**{IV}**

Her name was Jeyne, Caesar learned soon enough from one of the northmen. Jeyne Snow, of course, but the last part was not as regrettable as it could have been. Robert hadn't seen her yet, busy as he was with one of the kitchen maids, and Caesar was glad for that – there was no saying how he would have reacted.

_Rhaegar's daughter_, he couldn't stop thinking; because that was what she must be, without a doubt. It could not be otherwise, not with that face and those eyes; and he found himself wondering just what stupid game Stark had been playing when he'd took her in.

No game at all, probably; Eddard Stark wasn't the kind of man who concerned himself with the subtleness of the game of thrones. He must have taken her in out of pity for his dead sister, like some sort of amend; never considering _what_ exactly he had. Caesar would not do the same mistake.

He found himself glancing at the girl more and more during the mean, at the endless number of _possibilities_, unable to look away. Caesar observed Jeyne as she smiled, feeding small bites from her plate to the dogs under her table, as she drank from her cup, one sip after the other, as she talked a man of the Night's Watch that must have been Stark's brother, eyes alit with excitement. He saw her standing up from her seat at one point, making from the door, and made sure he was the only one who'd noticed. Then, he followed.

He found her in the courtyard, sat on the stone steps by the archery court; looking even more ethereal under the dim light of the moon than she had inside.

"Is everything well?" he called, fully knowing the effect he would have. As he'd expected, the girl winced.

"Yes…" he voice was low and broken, and she stopped for a moment when she raised her head and saw his face. She looked as though she'd been crying. "My Lord. Thank you."

"Are you sure?" he found himself asking, not quite knowing what else to say. He could not remember ever asking such a question to anyone. "You seem... distressed," he finished, taking another step toward her.

She flinched again, moving backwards slightly, and it dawned on Caesar that she must be scared. _Of course_, he realized, not surprised in the least than any girl raised by prim-and-proper Ned Stark would be concerned for her virtue in his presence. _And a bastard girl, at that_. He found himself laughing.

"I am sorry," he told her, as earnest as he could manage to sound, and part of him almost _was_. "I did not mean to startle you."

Caesar moved even closer after that, walking all the way to the steps and sitting down right beside the girl. She did not seem nervous this time, merely curious, looking straight at him as she'd had during the Feast; and only then he remembered– she'd been _looking_ at him before, staring just as he was.

_Well, that makes things simpler_, he thought, smiling at her. He was many things, and aware of his own charms was one of them. "Caesar Lannister," he introduced himself, with a slight bow of his head.

"I know who you are."

The girl's reply caught them both by surprise, and he suppressed a second smile. _Bold_. That was what they all said of Lyanna, he knew; and Brandon Stark as well. The North was no King's Landing and its people were as fiery and harsh as their winter storms.

"That was quite blunt of you," Caesar said, because two could play the honesty game; and had the pleasure to see Jeyne flush.

Still, she did not apologize. "My name is Jeyne," she paused slightly. "Snow."

"I know who you are," he echoed, suddenly remembered of Tyrion. It was the sort of thing he'd do, repeating someone else's words, doing his best to be as confusing as possible.

"Did you enjoy it?" he asked then, the sort of mindless chattering he might have asked at court. He found himself wishing _Tyrion_ were there, as odd as it was for him – his little brother surely would have known what to say, how to coax the girl to talk. The king's party would leave Winterfell in a fortnight, Ned Stark or not; but Jeyne Snow would definitely come South with them. _With him_.

"The feast," he continued, after one look at her confused face. "I have to say it was every bit as good as the ones we have in King's Landing."

It wasn't; but the simple mention of life in King's Landing had been enough to bring a gleam of excitement in those eyes. Dark, purple eyes, Caesar couldn't stop noticing, _beautiful. _Nothing like Ashara's, although those who hadn't known her might have been fooled; but not much like Rhaegar's either. _More like Queen Rhaella's_, he decided, before realizing with a bolt of… something that he, and Varys, and perhaps Ser Barristan, were the only people left in Westeros to remember how Rhaella Targaryen's eyes had looked like.

"It was good," she said, so low it was almost a whisper, some sort of wistfulness in her voice. She surely was not asked such questions often, not Jeyne Snow, the bastard; the ice maid with the purple eyes, clad in her simple woolen dress.

No, she wasn't a girl used to be taken into consideration, and their brief conversation would be enough of a difference, as meaningless as it had been. _Time to go_, he told himself.

"I am glad you enjoyed it," he said, giving her another smile as he stood up – and not, he hadn't imagined that small flicker of disappointment that passed through her face. "Goodnight, Jeyne Snow."

"I will see you," he told her, a fact more than a promise; and Caesar didn't turn his head to watch her as he left. He didn't need to – he knew he'd made an impression; he knew the girl would rethink on his parting words before falling asleep that night.

For now, it was enough.

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**AN**: This is probably going to be a three-shot, just so you know. I'm considering switching to Jeyne's POV for a while next, what do you think? As usual, do please review – I'm literally dying for some feedback. Cheers!


	2. The Snow Maid

**A/N:** So, I was completely _blown away_ by the response to this fic. Especially since, y'know, the concept is weird and the pairing borderline cracky. Thank you so much, you're awesome. Also, well, almost six thousand words later, I can safely confirm that this is no longer a three shot – there was just too much to write. I blame it on the reviews!  
(To Kedrickus, who asked anonymously on FFN who's in the KG instead of Jaime: Lyn Cobray; though he wasn't around when the king died – and wouldn't have done a thing if he had.)

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**Act Two: The Snow Maid**

**{I}**

_A true lady should be seen, not heard_.

Jeyne Snow was no lady, that much had been made clear to her many times over, but she could still recognize good advice when she saw it; and that was why, when both Caesar Lannister and _King Robert_ himself seemed to take notice of her in the same week, she did not know quite how to react.

It'd all started quietly enough, at least to Jeyne, with the king's raven informing Father that he would come to visit; and all of Winterfell had been caught in a frenzy since then. Even Jeyne herself had, once she'd heard of Lord Arryn's decision of leaving King's Landing and what it would mean for Father; suddenly wishing they had more time. Lord Stark hadn't as much time for his daughters as he had for his sons, but he was a steady, reassuring presence in Jeyne's life.

She couldn't imagine living in Winterfell without him.

She was put with the servants when the king's court arrived, and sat with the armsmen's wives in the Great Hall, but it was to be expected. It was the king's family Lady Stark was dining after all, not some bannerman who could be enticed with the promise of a young, pretty bride of Stark blood, bastard though she might be. It'd all been going as well as it could, truly, up until the point Benjen had gone and told her about Harrion, and then all she could think had been to get away, and _soon_.

Jeyne hadn't counted on Ser Caesar joining her outside, because who would? She'd been scared at first, the way she would have been to see one of those lions his House was so fond of, golden-haired and beautiful and deadly; and neither Harrion nor anyone else had smiled to her quite like he'd done.

She'd stopped worrying then, stopped caring about whatever hidden meaning there was in his moves; and allowed herself to dream, if only for a moment. She'd been just a girl, resting in the night air and enjoying the company of a man who wasn't Robb, for once; not matter that it had been only a pretend. It had been quite nice, for as long as it'd lasted, and even once Lannister had taken his leave with pretty words and yet another pretty smile, no doubt having forgotten her already, Jeyne still couldn't quite get the evening out of her head.

It had been odd, for sure; but also good, for as long as it'd lasted.

Jeyne had gone to bed thinking she'd never end up in such a strange situation again in her life; and then, two days later, there had been King Robert.

She'd been running an errand for Maester Luwin that morning, fetching some book or another for Ser Barristan; and she'd been glad for it because Maester Luwin always let her look through his books after he asked her to help, in his tower room that was always warm and as secluded and quiet as Jeyne could possibly wish for.

Father had been escorting the king to his solar or some such thing, and she'd almost walked straight into him, only stopping a few feet away.

"I'm sorry, Father," she muttered, expecting him to shake it away with a gesture of his hand and give her a light smile, as he usually would. He frowned instead, if only a little; and that was when Jeyne's eyes fell to the man next to him. She'd caught a glimpse of the king when he had arrived, as everyone had; surprised at seeing him so different from Father's stories, but she could never forget his face now.

"Oh," she felt herself say, as stupid as it must have sounded, but recovered herself fairly quickly. "Apologies, Your Grace," she said, making a swift curtsey and wishing she'd worn something else this morning, anything but the blue woolen dress – not only it was as simple as something a kitchen maid could wear, albeit on a feast day, but it was old and worn, and the cloth was almost sheer. It had been hot in the maester's rooms, but still she could have took her pelts. She could already _hear_ Lady Stark's comments about an indecent dress not being fit to be worn in front of the king, even one such as Robert Baratheon. _Especially_ one such as Robert Baratheon, she supposed.

Still, neither of the two men said a word. Father gave no sign of having noticed her dress and the king… was staring at her, Jeyne realized once she straightened and raised her head again. He wasn't eyeing her chest, though, or the rest of her body; it was her face he was looking at.

"Lya?" the king called, and it was barely a whisper.

"Your Grace," Father said, and it voice was calm and even. "This is my natural daughter, Jeyne Snow."

The king narrowed his eyes at that, looking at her once again – really looking this time, gaze moving from her head to her feet, and this time he lingered long enough on her figure that Jeyne almost blushed, hoping fervently that Father still had not noticed.

"Yes," he nodded in the end. "I can see that."

"You have your mother's eyes, girl," the king said, making Jeyne flinch in surprise.

_Your mother's eyes_. Did the king know her mother?

Her eyes searched Father's at that, but Lord Eddard was pointedly refusing to look at her, gaze fixed on Robert instead.

"And you are beautiful," he continued, and this time Jeyne did flush. Men had told her that often enough, stableboys and knights alike, but all of them with the same purpose. So had Theon Greyjoy, for that matter, and Robb when he wanted to compliment her, and _Harrion_ for the gods' knew what reason. But the king of the Seven Kingdoms, who could have all the women in the land, had just called her beautiful as if it were a matter of fact, as if it were _Sansa_ he was talking to; and Jeyne wasn't accustomed to that.

Her reaction must have been plain on her face, and he chuckled at her. "You should come to court," and, before she'd time to flinch yet once again, the king turned to Father. "You should bring her with you when you come South, Ned."

Father made to open his mouth at that, and she spoke up before he could.

"I'm sorry Your Grace, Father. Master Luwin asked me for help, may I be excused…?"

Jeyne let her voice fade, walking away as they both nodded, heart pumping in her chest. Truth be told, she wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or not – the prospect of _her_ at court was absurd enough for her to know that it would never happen, but somehow having the king's sole attention, if only for a minute had felt… good. _And_ she was fairly certain that Lady Stark had never been invited to court at her age, or she would have gone, handling Riverrun or not.

It was a silly thought, a stupid nothingness compared to the turmoil in her mind, she knew. The king himself had talked about her mother – _she had my eyes, whoever she was_ – and called her Lya, putting in such plain words the comparison that no one in Winterfell had quite dared to make.

In the face of all this, a compliment and some pretty nonsense from an old skirt-chaser should mean nothing, king or not. But still, it made her smile.

**{II}**

Three days after King Robert joked about Jeyne going South, his queen made her the same offer.

It had been even stranger, in a way, or so Jeyne thought. Queen Alysanne wasn't as polarizing a figure as her husband, although popular enough and as pretty as a queen should be. Still, there were no songs about her, no epic stories of rebellion and death as there were for Robert; the queen was merely a woman from a noble family who'd made a good match – _like Sansa will_, Jeyne thought.

Still, she was still_ the queen_; and Jeyne had not simply met her by chance, like it had been with Robert. No, the queen had _asked_ about her, by name; sent one of her ladies to fetch her and bring her to her rooms, and that was… curious, to say the least.

"Your Grace," her curtsey had been more graceful this time, or so she liked to think. It helped that she'd put on the nicest dress she owned, Stark grey and embroidered.

The queen was sitting down on a leather stuffed chair that had been in Lady Stark's quarters once, glancing up at Jeyne as her bedmaid brushed her hair – it shined golden under the light of the candle, and she watched fascinated. Blonde hair was rare in the North.

"Child," she did not sound overly warm but wasn't harsh either, merely calm. "You are Lady Sansa's half-sister, are you?"

"Your Grace," Jeyne nodded, curious. Usually she was _Lord Stark's bastard daughter_, and wondered why exactly the queen had phrased it that was – until she remembered of the unspoken betrothal between her sister and Prince Steffon. Then, she understood.

"Quite," it was clear that the queen had realized what she was thinking, because she nodded in turn, even giving Jeyne a small smile. "Your sister will need attendants once she marries," she said. "Someone she already knows; it will be good for her."

The queen's slight smile spoke of experience as she continued. "Although this will not be until a year or two, or so Lord Stark has agreed with the king."

Such was the way of life, Sansa Stark as future queen of Westeros and her bastard sister drawing her baths and helping her dress; but it was still better than being left in Winterfell to freeze in the coldness of Lady Stark's icy smiles, like a forgotten snow maid.

"I would offer you a place in my household until then," the queen said, as Jeyne knew she would; same as she knew she would accept. "I do have more ladies than I know what to do with, but it is always good to have someone to call on when more help is needed. You could still attend your duties in your father's household in King's Landing in the meantime."

Had the queen proposed this only a week earlier, Jeyne would have refused, as silly as it would have been. _And what of me, then?_

One week ago, she'd still had dreams; but Benjen's words had long since shattered them. _This must be what Septa Mordane means when she says that suffering is good for the soul_, she thought. She'd never particularly liked the Seven, cruel gods who commanded faith and gave nothing in return, not even when Septa Mordane had patiently explained her that the Seven only put men through misery to test their faith.

Jeyne had asked if having faith would make her Lady Stark's daughter, and laughed at the septa's scandalized face. She had not truly meant it, but it had been worth to see the woman's reaction; and they'd never talked faith again. Still, in that moment Jeyne could almost understand the septa's reasons. _Does disillusionment make me a better person?_

She looked at the queen again, this woman who had no reason to like her and would despise her if she'd known of her husband's fascination with her. Had the queen made her offer out of pity, Jeyne wonder; but even if she had, it would've made no difference. _Pride is for fools, little one_, she remembered.

"I would love to, Your Grace," she said, and smiled.

In that moment, she looked like she truly meant it.

**{III}**

Deciding hadn't been hard, and leaving was even easier.

Jeyne did not know who exactly had told Father that she would be leaving with them, whether Queen Alysanne herself had, or if she'd sent some servant to do it, but he did not object. In fact, they never talked about it – they did not talk at all, which Jeyne was quite sure had all to do with the king's comment about her mother.

Father likely expected her to ambush with questions the first time they'd be alone together, and it irked her somewhat that he did not know her at all. It did not sadden her though; they were past long that.

He must have been the one to inform Lady Catelyn though, and she came into Jeyne's room the morning of her departure. In the past, Jeyne sometimes had wondered if Lady Stark's even knew where her room _was_ – she had always sent servants to call for her, when she did not choose to forget that Jeyne existed. She'd done so even back when she'd used to enjoy mothering her, when Jeyne had been a child; but that had been so long ago.

She'd knocked at the door and Jeyne had let her in – what else could have she done, after all? – and Lady Stark had stood on the doorway, twisting her hands and looking as though she was about to say something; and Jeyne herself had done her best to keep her face a perfect, expressionless mask._ A lady's composure is her armor_, she used to say, back when Jeyne had only been a young girl, no yet _the bastard_ in Lady Catelyn's eyes.

_Do you see how well I learn my lesson, Mother?_ she wanted to say then.

Jeyne had only called Lady Catelyn her _Mother_ once, when she'd been about three. It was one of her earliest memories, wondering why she couldn't when Robb did; and Lady's Stark's reaction had been interesting, to say the least. She'd cried then; but twelve years later, it was amusing.

"You're leaving," she said, and Jeyne thought, _no need to look so relieved, my lady_. She did not said anything though, not then; stood still and patient as her father's wife told her to _remember her lessons_ and to look after Sansa, which Jeyne suspected had been the only part of the conversation she'd genuinely meant.

It was a while before she realized what Lady Catelyn was trying to say in her stiff, convolute turns of phrase; to remember her virtue and not _shame your father's House, _the first timeshe'd ever acknowledged Jeyne's parentage in her hearing.

"I do believe I have been taught enough that I can secure a good enough marriage for myself, Lady Stark," Jeyne told her, trying to sound as ladylike as she could. "With Father's approval, of course."

It turned out that Lady Stark even had a gift for her, which almost left Jeyne speechless. It was a dress, not new but never worn – one Lord Manderly had sent Sansa a few months before, but it'd been too tight on the hips and too delicate to alter. The dress was mauve – _it'll bring out my eyes_, Jeyne thought. It was prettier than any dress she'd ever owned, and she felt a wave of gratitude through her.

Still, she forced herself to maintain her calm, to control herself. _Carrot and stick_, Lady Stark had told her once. She probably had thought Jeyne couldn't understand her, but Jeyne remembered every single thing Lady Catelyn had ever said in her presence – she admired the woman, after all, as much as she resented her. _Make them feel grateful every once in a while, and they will never begrudge you. You cannot despise the hands that feeds you_.

She had accepted the dress, and smiled to Lady Stark as prettily as Sansa did.

"It is good, my lady," she said, "to see how happy my leaving makes you."

Lady Catelyn had looked as though she wanted to slap her for a moment; but then there was a flash in her eyes that Jeyne could even imagine was respect. Had it been any other person, perhaps.

"Goodbye, Jeyne," she said, and left.

Her second farewell was Robb; and it was as awkward as she'd expected, and almost as brief. They'd never had much in common, not since Robb had grown enough to start spending his time practicing with Ser Rodrick, and Jeyne had taken up helping the Maester to learn from his book, and would spent whatever moments she had free from her duties and Septa Mordane lurking around the archers, staring as Theon Greyjoy hit his target at two hundred paces.

Robb was the lord's heir and Jeyne is bastard sister, and whatever affection there was between them was born of occasion and showed itself as an occasional bolt of protectiveness when one of the men looked at her the wrong way. Still she loved him something fierce, her dreamer of a brother, _beautiful_ as he was, the way the snowy vastness of the North was beautiful, pure and unspoiled.

"I'm going to miss you," she whispered in his ear as she hugged him; and that was it. She would most likely never see him again, on Sansa's wedding perhaps, with a wife of his own trailing him and maybe a babe, another Stark to hold Winterfell.

Benjen was the last, and this time it was him who hold her tightly. "You be strong," he told her, and nothing else. He'd always understood her better than any of the Starks could; and her cheeks were wet as she watched him ride away back to his Wall.

**{IV}**

It was a month's journey to King's Landing, but it passed by in a blur.

They were given rooms in the Hand's Tower, which Jeyne did her best to avoid – it was _warm_ in King's Landing, more than she had ever imagined it could be possible, and her small room in one of the bottom floors was as hot as the kitchen back in Winterfell when the sun reached its peak.

Queen Alysanne called on her a few times during that first fortnight in the Red Keep, at one point even personally introducing her to some of her ladies. The queen kept a lively court – to keep herself busy while His Grace fucked half the women in King's Landing – and, while her saying that she had more ladies that she knew what to do with had not been strictly true, it wasn't far from being so.

Most of the women shunned her, as she'd expected they would. They were mostly young ladies from the Reach, cousins to the queen with no use for a bastard girl from the North. Still, there were other women at court – Queen's Alysanne favorite lady was from Dorne; and one of the others was a Frey of the Crossing who, in introducing herself to Jeyne, had candidly admitted that she was well acquainted with all of Lord Walder's many bastards – _and they don't look half as nice as you_, she'd said.

Jeyne had never had many occasions for female company, not a Winterfell, and started enjoying those moments in the Red Keep more than she'd imagined. She even caught herself once or twice wondering if Lady Stark had ever felt lonely, surrounded by men all the time; before firmly reminding herself that it wasn't any of her business.

It was during one such day that she came face to face with King Robert for the second time, one evening while the queen had been having supper with her husband in his solar. She'd asked for a very expensive bottle of Dornish Red to be delivered halfway during the meal, and Jeyne had been sent, privately deciding that Her Grace meant to get her lord husband well and truly drunk, and perhaps having him sign something in the meanwhile.

He hadn't noticed her at first, and only paid attention to Jeyne as she's started pouring in his cup. The king had turned towards her then, his eyes bloodshot and nose red, and frowned as if he were trying to place her.

"Your Grace," Jeyne said, and he blinked in recognition.

"You are Ned's bastard, aren't you?" he did not bother to wait for her to answer. "It's good to see he listened to me, for once. I told him so many times to bring you to court, girl."

It had been Jeyne's turn to blink at that, surprised. _The queen_ had been the one to have her brought South, not Father…

"Thank you, Jeyne, dear," the queen cut in, interrupting Jeyne's curious thoughts. "You may leave us now."

Jeyne visited the Godswood for the first time that night, to _think_. It was curious, to say the least, to know that the queen herself had been the one to invite her in King's Landing, without her husband's knowledge – and certainly without Father's. _What reasons could she have, to take such an interest in a bastard girl?_ _Perhaps she'd truly meant what she'd said about Sansa needing companions, but why did it have to be me?_

"Are you praying your Northern gods, Jeyne?"

She turned towards the voice, but she could just as well not have had. She'd come to recognize his voice fairly well since that first meeting, and the man seemed to enjoy to try taking her by surprise.

"Lord Caesar," she said, as evenly as she could; and there he was, standing not quite ten feet from her, as impeccably dressed as ever, his face a unreadable. "And how are you?"

They'd had two or three such exchanges during their journey South, and a couple more since her arrival. He always approached her when she was in a public place, alone, always making his best efforts to startle her, and they ended up having a perfectly polite, meaningless conversation.

She'd asked him what he wanted once, and he'd smiled at her. _Do you know how_ hard _is to find a woman who's a decent conversationalist these day, dear?_

He would ask her questions, but rarely answer her own. How she spent her days in Winterfell, the name of her favorite book, why she enjoyed helping the maester so much. It had been unsettling at first, to have her carefully crafted _idea_ of Jeyne Snow shatter under the weight of a handful of questions – Jeyne enjoyed dancing because she'd been instructed so, but no one had ever suspected she might like playing the harp more; Jeyne had learnt some medicine from Maester Luwin because it was useful, and done her best to keep it a secret that she enjoyed sums and History more.

It had been inebriating at first, when she could not quite remember when it had been the last time that anyone had asked her about her preferences. It had gotten unsettling soon after, when she'd been so nervous in answering, when she had needed some time to remember. Jeyne Snow enjoyed riding, a perfectly ladylike activity even though she wasn't one; but _Jeyne_ enjoyed archery as well, and Lord Caesar had made a strange face when she'd told him so.

_My sister did, as well_, he'd said, and that had been the end of that particular conversation.

Today, he was asking about her gods.

"It is not the _trees_ we pray to," she told him; with all the disdain she could muster, because a man like Caesar Lannister had to know more about the gods of the North than he was pretending to. She wondered briefly whether he was trying to rile her up. "They are a symbol, not unlike those seven gods of yours, Ser."

"Oh?" he smiled slightly at that, and _yes_, he had been trying to rile her up.

"And as the Seven would be One, the One is divided unto seven parts, to better watch on mankind. And as the Seven become the One, all of the world is part of the one principle, as it was in the beginning and will be again at the end of times."

The man seemed baffled at first, then laughed; a true, heartfelt laugh that she hadn't even believed him capable of, and she felt herself smiling, too. "Are you quoting the _Seven-pointed star_ at me, girl?"

"Is this how you win discussions?"

She nodded, still smiling. "Most of the times, it seems to work."

"My brother does the same thing." He stood almost next to her now, only a feet or so between their shoulders, narrowed eyes trailed on the tree in front of them.

"Do your Northern gods listen to your prayers?" he asked then, surprising her; and Jeyne wondered if perhaps this was more personal than she'd suspected.

Her thoughts went to the big weirwood in Winterfell and how safe she'd always felt in its shadow, to Father and his secrecy and growing up without a Mother. _Will faith make me Lady Stark's daughter?_ Jeyne thought of Harrion and his family, and of lingering by the yard when Theon Greyjoy practiced. _Bastards can't be trusted, everyone says so_. She thought of the day Robb and Bran had come back from that execution with their direwolf puppies, five of them. _Five wolves for five Starks_, Sansa had told her, excited. _Is it not just perfect?_

Jeyne kept staring at the tree, but could feel his eyes on her. She found herself smiling a bitter smile.

"Do gods ever?"

**{V}**

It was during one of such encounters that Jeyne saw Varys, the Spider, for the first time. They had been in the gardens, and it was late enough that she could already see a few starts in the purple sky. There weren't many people around them, not at such an hour, and she immediately noticed Varys when he approached, only mere minutes after Ser Caesar had left.

She even wondered if they had crossed paths, before realizing how stupid it was – she'd heard enough of Varys to know that he was never seen if he did not want to.

"Lord Varys," Jeyne said; and he gave her a slight bow of his head.

"My lady."

She laughed at that, more out of surprise than anything else. "I am not a lady." _As I am sure you well know_.

Varys gave her a slight smile, and shrugged. "And neither am I a lord, child."

Jeyne felt a surge of anger at that, and being called a _child_ had almost nothing to do with it. Varys could play his word games for as long as he wanted; but, at the end of the day, he sat on the king's Small Council, while Jeyne… well, there was nothing to say about her.

"What do you want?" she asked, not caring that she sounded harsher than she'd meant to.

The spymaster gave her another shrug. "Only to warn you, Jeyne Snow."

"Be discreet," he continued before she had time to ask him what he'd meant. "It will not be long before someone else in court will realize just how often you spend time with Lord Tywin's son."

"I–" Jeyne stuttered, not quite knowing what to say. Varys had taken her by surprise, yet another important member of the court taking notice of her with no apparent reason. "We only talk," she said in the end, as weak of an excuse as it was. "And never for long."

"Oh, I know," Varys said, and _of course he would know_. "But other people will not; they will start wondering what is that the heir of the Rock sees in Lord Stark's bastard daughter. And then…"

He let his voice fade at that, but Jeyne did not particularly cared about what would happen _then_. There was only one thing she wanted to know.

"And do you know what it is that he sees?" she asked, with all of Lady Catelyn's contempt. "Him, and the queen, and King Robert?"

"Oh, I do," Varys said, and his face seemed to soften. "But they all see different things, I am afraid."

"Tell me," she began; but he cut her off before she could finish.

"I do suggest you ask," he said. "Although not the king. Ser Caesar, perhaps, and while you are at it, you could even ask him what he was doing last week with his father in the Kingswood."

He walked away at that, leaving Jeyne baffled in the middle of the garden, alone with her thoughts.

**{VI}**

The next time Jeyne Snow talked to Caesar Lannister, she was the one who went looking for him.

She did not have the patience he had, or the time to wait until they were both in the same time; but rather she simply asked one of the chambermaids for directions his chambers, and knocked at his door in the first hours of the afternoon.

Caesar himself opened the door, and he looked so surprised to see her that Jeyne couldn't help but let her satisfaction show on her face. "May I come inside?"

He nodded and let moved to her pass – it was, without a doubt, the rashest thing she'd ever done in her life. If anyone had seen her…

But the corridors were deserted, the nobles resting after their midday meal and their servants busy with the afternoon duties, and Jeyne let the door close behind her with a loud slam.

"I need to talk to you," she did not even bothering with any of her usual courtesies, and saw the corners of his mouth twitch.

"It seems to me you are already doing it."

He gestured for her to follow him, and Jeyne did, looking around as she went. Caesar's rooms were every bit as beautiful as Father's chambers in the Hand's Tower, if smaller, and the fittings and personal effects laid around spoke of a longer permanence. He showed her to some sort of sitting chamber next, a room that was almost exactly like the solar in Winterfell but for its size, and Jeyne stopped dead in her tracks once she passed through the door.

Because there was someone else in there already.

The man, for it was a man, had stood up from his seat the moment Jeyne had entered the room, as if she truly were some sort of lady; but even at his full height he couldn't be taller than Bran. His hair was of a blonde pale enough to be almost white, like the Targaryen's must have looked, and his eyes…

"Jeyne, this is my brother, Tyrion." Caesar's voice startled her – _of course_, she thought. _Who else could he be?_ "Tyrion, this is Jeyne Snow, Ned Stark's lovely daughter."

There was a hint of mockery in his voice, but then again, there always was. It had not taken long to Jeyne to notice that every word Caesar Lannister spoke sounded like some sort of taunt – as if the whole world was some sort of mummer's show for him to laugh at.

"My lord," Jeyne greeted him, trying her best to keep her emotions under control. She'd taken so many precautions not to be seen, and he _invited her inside_ his room with _his brother_ there?

"It's Tyrion, dear," he said. "I'm afraid my father is the lord in the family, and my dear brother the one with the Council seat." He'd sounded every bit as sardonic as his brother had, if not for the self-deprecation, and gave her a wry smile as he spoke. "You are indeed lovely."

"Do sit down."

She did, too astonished to refuse, and turned her gaze to Caesar in a silent question.

"What is it?" he asked. "You said you wanted to talk to me."

He reminded Jeyne so much of Theon in that moment, down to the sly smile, and she bit her bottom lip to calm herself, trying to remember of that time she'd _slapped_ Theon, and how _satisfying_ it had felt.

Next to her, Tyrion Lannister started to laugh. "Well, brothers, I see that your manners certainly haven't improved."

"I will see myself out," he continued, making for the door. "Have a wonderful day, Caesar. Jeyne."

She waited until she heard the door close before speaking. "Will he… he is not going to say that he saw me in here, right?"

Caesar gave her an half-shrug, moving to sit on the chair his brother had left unoccupied. "What for?"

_Right_, Jeyne told herself. _He has no reasons to_.

She started to wonder why she'd never seen Tyrion Lannister before – someone like him was bound to be noticeable – and was about to ask Caesar when he spoke again.

"My brother arrived to court together with my father a few days past. Father asked King Robert for permission to organize a hunt in the Kingswood, and they both came to King's Landing after."

"So this is what you were doing –"

Jeyne had stopped herself as soon as she had realized what she was saying, but it was too late. Caesar leaned in closer towards her, green eyes almost glistening.

"What was that?" he asked, softly – the way a steel blade would look soft if it was draped in satin.

She felt herself flush in embarrassment. _Damn it to the Seven Hells_. How could she have been so _stupid_?

"Lord Varys," she told him, almost mumbling. "Came to me the day before yesterday and said…" Jeyne took a pause before continuing; Varys words had been truer than she'd wanted them to be. "That people were bound to notice that you come look for me every time I am in the gardens, and it is true, _they are_."

She said the last part as defiantly as she could, almost glaring at him. "Someone will notice, and start gossiping and wonder why, and I do not want to know what will happen then."

_You should probably stop_, she was about to say, but he interrupted her.

"What else did he say? About the Kingswood?"

"I asked him if he knew why you are doing this, he told me to ask you – and to ask what you were doing in the Kingswood with your lord father."

"And you came to ask me." The smile was back on his face, as sardonic as always. "This is sound advice, Jeyne. I have to say I am surprised."

She willed herself to calm down, imagining Lady Stark's face, her stern voice. _A lady's composure is her armor._

"So?" Jeyne found herself asking, as boldly as she could manage.

"So, I went on a hunt. It was good, you can tell Lord Varys that."

Jeyne felt a rush of anger at his dismissive attitude – she was not a child, no matter what Queen Alysanne seemed to think.

"So, what do you want from me?" she asked again, and Caesar's smile widened. This time, it seemed almost genuine.

"I was waiting for you to ask, Jeyne" he said. They were barely inches apart now, and she could feel his breath brushing her face with his every word. "You see, it is quite simple."

"I want to marry you."

* * *

**A/N:** Aaaand, there you have it. Jeyne is pretty much a drama queen, because hello teenage hormones. Still, hopefully she's likeable enough and not self-absorbed to the point of being annoying – you tell me if it worked.

BTW, I have been told that I should get into the fandom on tumblr, because it's great & there's lots of cool fanboying/fangirling going on over there. BUT, I have no idea whatsoever of how tumblr even _works_. Anyone can help – pretty please?

Feedback is love 3


	3. The Gamble

**A/N: **In which the inherent creepiness factor of the story comes out. Here, have yourself some shady underage relationship-whatever.

* * *

**Act Three: The gamble**

**{I} **

"I want to marry you," he said, whispering, barely a few inches from her lips. "What do you say?"

Caesar could read her disbelief plain on her face, in the way she jerked away slightly, lips parted. She hid it as best as she could, of course, but still he could see her eyes widening, feel the flashes of surprise, thrill, _anger_.

"You…" she was looking away, somewhere above his head, cheeks flushed. "You shouldn't say this."

Her voice was harsh, stern and cold the way a panel of glass can be, until it shatters. Caesar smiled.

"And why is that?"

She still wouldn't look at him, and he brought one hand to clench her wrist before she pulled away, tightening his hold gently, little by little. He let his thumb brush her skin slowly, feeling her heartbeat in her pulse. He counted fourteen before she answered.

"Because," Jeyne said, with all the defiance a she could muster. "It's a jape made in very poor taste, and sometimes someone will believe that you mean what you say."

And if Caesar already hadn't decided to marry her he might have be swayed, there and then. He laughed, a full-fledged laugh, made a point of showing her exactly how amused, how _delighted_ he was.

"You really are lovely, Jeyne," he informed her, and meant it, "if you truly believe that I'm japing."

He let go of her wrist and she moved away as he knew he would, slumping down on her chair, crossing her arms on her chest as if in some sort of protection.

"You aren't," she repeated. It wasn't strictly a question, but he answered all the same.

"I do not."

Jeyne raised her head to towards him, _staring_, as she'd never done before. There was no polite attempt at concealing now, only her purple gaze locked with Caesar's own, bold and unapologetic, eyes fixed on him as if she were trying to read his mind.

_As if…_

She seemed satisfied with what she found, gave him a slight nod.

"Alright," she told him. "and why would you…"

She let her voice tremble, not quite daring to say it out loud, and Caesar had to hold back yet another laugh at the hesitancy he saw in her eyes, at all the other emotions he could read in there – she was curious now, and _expectant_, the way a young girl might look on the eve of her name day, dreaming of the surprise she would receive in the morning.

Jeyne never had a big celebration on her name day, he suspected, never had the pleasure of choosing a fancy gift and having it delivered; and now he was giving it to her. After all, which bastard girl did not stay awake at night, dreaming of how different life would be, had she been born some great lady?

Caesar knew he had her; it was only a matter of time.

"Why not?" he told her, keeping his eyes trailed on her face for her reaction. "There is a serious lack of trueborn wives, as you might have noticed, or we wouldn't have found ourselves with an Hightower for a queen." There it was it, and sincere as a girl from the North could possibly want him to be. "I figure I can choose whomever I want at this point, can I?"

He privately thanked whatever gods might be listening for that. Their Queen Alysanne, pretty and gracious as she was, had not Great House behind her, no family at court or political ambition, and very few friends. That she counted him between those few certainly did not hurt.

Jeyne was looking at him with the same attention he'd paid to her earlier. "What about Lady Margaery?"

"And here I was, thinking that women from the North did not gossip quite as much," Caesar told her, but it did not seem to distract her. "What about her? Her father meant her for Prince Steffon and told me so, and I never make the same offer twice."

Caesar thought back to old Mad Aerys, to the day he'd refused his sister and went on to choose sickly Elia instead, and wondered exactly how Mace Tyrell's plump face would look once he got the news that the heir to the Rock would be marrying a northern bastard instead of his daughter.

"Wouldn't your father be angered," Jeyne's voice brought him back from his thoughts. "If you marry a bastard?"

She had asked him, but from her voice it was clear that she hadn't wanted to, reluctant to bring Lord Tywin's objections to his attention. _She's growing fond of the idea_, Caesar realized, amused.

"I already told him," Caesar said, enjoying the surprised look he received at that. _A step up from the peasant girl_, his father had said, but he had come around in the end. "Why do you think my brother was here?"

_Not that Tyrion's opinions will influence Father's, of course_, but and saw no reason to tell Jeyne that.

"As for the rest, Jeyne," he leaned in as he'd done earlier, closer and closer. "I think the king wouldn't mind making you a Stark for your wedding day."

And _there_ was it, the hitch in her breath, the small frown in her brow as she tried to muster the disbelief that would not come. _All your dreams on a silver platter, Jeyne_.

"He'd have no reasons to say no," Caesar continued, casually, as if he hadn't noticed the effect his words were having on her. "Lord Stark is such a good friend of his, and has three sons to inherit; not even Lady Catelyn could say a thing."

There was no love lost between Lady Stark and her husband's daughter, even a fool could see that. The girl would never be a menace to her son's title, but she looked more like Ned Stark than any of them did.

_Almost there_, he thought.

"I will go ask your father tomorrow, if you want," he offered, because he saw no reason to wait. Every day brought Robert closer to drinking himself to death, every day Daenerys Targaryen stayed married to her horse lord made it more likely that she would conceive a child. "Or even tonight."

It was some time before she answered.

"This –" she began, then paused. "This is all quite sudden, ser. May have some time to think about it?"

It was as good as a yes, Caesar figured, that polite retreat; and he imagined Jeyne thinking his words over and over, with no one she could tell about. _A few days_, he thought. A fortnight, _at the latest_.

He could wait a fortnight.

"Of course, dear," he told her, as graciously as he could, and then he kissed her, because it seemed like the right moment and because he'd wanted to do it for weeks.

Jeyne didn't react at first, and he wondered if it was the surprise that made her unresponsive, or some distorted notion of ladylike behavior she must have gotten from Lady Stark. He almost chuckled at the thought, breathing air on her closed lips, bringing one hand on her shoulder, caressing her neck.

It was over before it really began, but then again, it was a game of anticipation. Her eyes shined when he moved away, and Caesar smiled to himself.

"I'll wait," he told her, and knew it wouldn't be for long.

Her cheeks were flushed when she stood up to leave, and did not look at him while he walked her to the door. It was only when he was about to open it that she turned her face to him.

"Are you the reason why I am in King's Landing?" she asked, quietly, with none of the elaborate courtesies he'd come to associate with her nervousness. She merely looked puzzled, as if faced with a question she'd been wondering about for a long time – and she probably had.

"Yes," he told her; and she certainly hadn't been expecting such as blunt answer from him because, when she spoke again, her voice was not quite as firm.

"Is there another reason you want to marry me?"

_Tyrion will like her_, Caesar thought at that, wondering if it was some instinct or simple suspicion behind Jeyne's question; the difference between a pawn and a player.

"There is always another reason," he told her, and she nodded. Jeyne did not ask and he did not offer, and that was all.

_For now_.

**{II}**

Tyrion came to him not quite one hour later, striding in without knocking at the door.

"Brother," he called. "I fancy a walk in the gardens."

Caesar followed him, not bothering to talk. Tyrion was quite particular when it came to secrecy, and outright refused to discuss anything that might be considered of importance in the Keep, no matter how innocuous. He was very similar to Father in that, though Caesar suspected none of them would have been glad of the comparison.

"How did it go?" he asked, once they were outside. "With the Stark girl."

"The Snow girl," Caesar corrected him, "I asked to marry me."

Tyrion did not halt in his walk, but it was a close enough thing. He let out a whistle instead, like some kind of stablehand, and laughed. "That was rather rushed of you."

"No use in waiting once you take a decision," Caesar told him, feeling the weight of Father's words in his mouth. "And apparently Varys had told her of the _hunt_ we had in the Kingswood, I thought it best to act before he could do anymore damage."

His brother did stop at that, so suddenly that Caesar had taken a good four or five steps before he realized it.

"That's… unfortunate."

Caesar rolled his eyes at the worry in Tyrion's voice. His brother – again, much like his father – seemed to have a skewed idea of the Spider's true abilities and intention. While Varys had, without a doubt, spies everywhere in the Keep, Caesar didn't see the problem in discussing private matters – as long as they weren't _too_ private – where the spymaster could hear.

He simply assumed that the eunuch already knew, saving himself many unpleasant surprises and many headaches.

"Not really," he told Tyrion. "He might have guessed what we discussed, but I think he knew before we did."

If anyone would have put together Lady Lyanna's mysterious death and Ned Stark's purple-eyed bastard from Dorne, Caesar knew that it would have been Varys. And yet he hadn't said a thing, not even when his position had been at risk with Robert; and Caesar remembered the last few days of Aerys' kingdom, how the eunuch had told the king not to open the gates.

"Will you talk to Ned Stark?" Tyrion's voice brought him back to reality, away from the stench of burnt flesh and the green of wildfire. Caesar shook his head.

"Not yet."

He wondered how Stark would react. There was no love lost between his father and the Lord of Winterfell; but he and Stark shared a casual friendship, or something quite similar to it, born of a king's death fourteen years before and rekindled by hours spent waiting for Robert at the Council table.

It all depended, Caesar decided, on whether Stark was either cunning or paranoid enough to realize that he knew the truth of Jeyne's birth; but Caesar knew he wouldn't enjoy twisting the girl against her family when the time came.

"Good."

There was an odd note in Tyrion's voice, and Caesar noticed he was staring at the ground as they walked. He looked at the river in the distance, and waited for his brother to speak.

"You do still have time to forget about all of this," he said, eventually, and Caesar wondered if he realized how half-hearted he sounded.

"Your concern for me warms my heart," he told Tyrion, dryly. "Hypocrite is not a good look on you. I know that _forget about all of this_ is the last thing you want me to do."

Tyrion acknowledged his words with a bow of his head. "Wonderful. I warned you, you ignored me, I consider my brotherly duty done." He paused. "But still, it is a gamble."

Of course it was – the greatest gamble of Caesar's life, one that might well end with his death, as implausible as that was. And, with his death, Tyrion would likely plead innocence and end up with the Rock, like he'd always wanted; same as he would if Caesar succeeded in becoming king.

"It is," he agreed. "And I'm going to win."

**{III}**

Father had said as much, _it's a gamble_, when Caesar had first told him but, unlike Tyrion, Lord Tywin'd had the good sense not to make stupid pleas.

Caesar had sent the first message when he'd still been in Winterfell, asking his father for an encounter as soon as possible – an unusual request, to be sure, but definitely something that would get Lord Tywin's attention.

He'd written the letter himself, under the attentive eyes of Stark's maester, a man named Luwin who had a surprising good collection of genealogies, books so new he'd never expected to find them so far from the Citadel. Caesar made small talk with the man and borrowed on of his books, and hopefully distracted Luwin enough that he did not wonder what he'd written in the message.

He'd meant to write another message when they reached Darry, with the date of their arrival to King's Landing, but he'd found his father instead, traveling with only two men disguised as hedge knights', as he'd sometimes taken to do after Jamie's ambush by the outlaws.

Caesar had explained it as best as he could, his suspicions about Lyanna and Rhaegar and Jeyne Snow, and how she was too young to be Lady Ashara's daughter, and Tywin's eyes had narrowed when he'd pointed the girl to him.

"Do you mean to tell Robert?" his father had asked, and Caesar'd had to admit, surprised, that he'd never thought about it. It was a sound plan, and nowhere as risky, to expose the girl as dragonspawn and have Ned Stark disgraced, exiled or perhaps even killed.

It was a sound plan, and nowhere as risky, but with no real reward as well.

"I mean of putting her on the Throne," Caesar had told Tywin instead; because a Lannister was nothing if not ambitious.

His father had granted Caesar support if he could prove what he'd said; and he'd sent men to Starfall after that, to ask about Ashara Dayne.

Lady Ashara had left from King's Landing a few months after the beginning of the Rebellion, and only an handful of people claimed to have seen her after that. Caesar had heard the rumors on her indiscretions during his forced stay at the Red Keep, and had no difficulty in believing the stories, not after seeing her at Harrenhall with Brandon Stark; but he had not even once suspected _Ned Stark_, of all people.

There had been more rumors, after the war, of a stillborn child, but most people had heard of young Lord Eddard's return to King's Landing with his sister's body and a bastard daughter born in Dorne, and that was it. Ashara had never been heard of again, never came back to court, never answered Jon Arryn's messages when he started looking for a suitable wife for Robert. Some said she'd killed herself after her brother's death, some others that she'd become a septa or left for the Free Cities, or a thousand other things.

That day in Darry, Caesar had taken out the book he'd borrowed from Maester Luwin at Winterfell and pointed out to Tywin a Lady Allyria Dayne, born a few months before the end of the Rebellion, and wasn't _curious_ how Ashara had a sister that was the exact same age her bastard child would have been? If there ever was a bastard child born in Starfall, Caesar had told his father, that was the young Lady Allyria, not Jeyne Snow, and there had to be _someone_ in Starfall who knew.

Caesar's inquiries had proved him right not quite a fortnight before, when his father's men had come back from Dorne with a woman named Wylla, Lord Dayne's former wet nurse, who claimed to be Jeyne Snow's mother.

Her eyes, Caesar had noticed, were as dark as coal.

They'd met up in the Kingswood, because it was isolated and yet not far from King's Landing, and because Lord Tywin had wanted to be sure that there were no spies following them. That Jamie had been killed a few miles from there was only an unfortunate occurrence, and Caesar had tried with all his heart not to think of it.

It had been easy enough, all solved with the promise of fifty golden dragons for the woman and a place as men-at-arms in Casterly Rock for her children, if they so wished. He'd told the woman of how he wanted to marry young Jeyne but couldn't unless he could bring his family absolute proof that she was Lord Stark's daughter before doing so.

"Oh, she was Lord Stark's alright, m'lord," the woman had told him, once he'd explained his part. Ladies or peasants, all women seemed to enjoy doomed love stories, and fifty dragons went a long way to get the truth. "But I think her mother was married."

"Not Lady Ashara," Wylla had rushed to add soon enough. "The babe wasn't born at Starfall, I woulda known, I used t'live 'round there. But Lord Stark said it was a noble lady, and had a whole following, a sept and a master, said the lady had sent 'em. He said she couldn't look after the child by herself so he woulda to, and paid me to say she was mine. I didn't mind, had just lost a child and had one more waiting at home, and Lord Stark had Lord Dayne to take me in."

But Caesar hadn't been paying attention anymore by that point. A septa, and a maester, he'd thought – surely more reliable witnesses than a went nurse if it ever came to the point where witnesses where needed. He'd sent the woman back to Dorne with her coins with instruction for the men to get the other people who'd come to Starfall with Stark. Only then he'd turned to Tywin, who'd been staring in silence the whole time, green eyes unblinking.

"I should also add that Varys seem to agree with me," Caesar had told his father, observing amused the frown that came on Lord Tywin's face every time the Maester of Whispers was mentioned. "One of his spies had been following me when I talk to the Snow girl – from a distance, of course."

"And a few days ago he came up to me and told me that I've been playing a dangerous game."

"That you are," Tywin had interrupted him.

"That I am," Caesar had replied, not quite caring of how he sounded. He almost never dared to talk back to his father like Tyrion often did, out of respect or fear he did not know; but that had been one of those times. "But the only thing I could lose here is having Mace Tyrell as a good-father, and I think I can live with that."

"There's no real risk, Father," he'd said. "Whatever happens, Robert will be dead before winter comes, and what then? His wife's family? Robert's brothers?"

"Varys –"

"– likes to feel important, to know secrets, and to plot. He knows enough on me that he could have had me killed already, but hasn't done a thing."

Lord Tywin had glared at him at that, not liking the reminder, but Caesar had ignored him. It had been his father's idea to get closer to the queen, lonely as she was; and Tywin certainly enjoyed having the king in his purse.

"The worst thing that could happen, Father, is nothing; and I will still end up with a pretty young wife." _And if _that_ is your problem, Father…_

"And if you don't fancy your heir marrying a bastard, we can have Tyrion do it instead. Just remember it was_ your_ idea, if he ever becomes king."

That had been enough to quiet Tywin's objections.

Six days later, Caesar Lannister had asked Jeyne Snow to marry him.

**{IV}**

Caesar spent the following week wooing Ned Stark's bastard daughter, and doing his best to be noticed with her without people realizing how far things had progressed between them. It was a thin line, to be sure, but not hard; and in a few days a few people everyone seemed to have seen them together, from the Queen's ladies to Littlefinger.

In fact, the only one who seemed not to have noticed was Lord Stark himself.

He took walks with Jeyne every day now and, as big as the godswood was, their habit had started to be noticed. She had been unusually tense on the first day, but relaxed soon enough when he failed to mention his proposal again, telling her about Casterly Rock instead.

She talked about living in Winterfell and visiting White Harbor, of summer snows and Benjen Stark's stories about the Wall, and it all ended up being much more pleasant than he'd expected it to be. Caesar went on to tell her about Tyrion – not of Jamie, never Jamie – from the time he'd broken his arm trying to ride by himself as a child, to the time he'd poured a bucket of iced water on Aunt Gemma's unsavory Frey husband.

"I hated him when he was a child," Caesar conceded, "but I suppose he was funny enough."

He even told her of that night, ten years ago, and it was the only suggestion of marriage he made all day. "You asked about my father's reaction – Tyrion almost married this peasant girl once, I daresay he would be pleasantly surprised I have better taste."

It was a lie, of course; but he told her the story all the same. It was a funny enough story, all things considered, although he asked her to keep it a secret. "Her name's Tysha," Caesar concluded. "I _think_ Tyrion still meet up with her from time to time, but you should tell _anyone_ this."

Another lie, but the girl did not need to know.

On the fourth day he had a gift for her, a silver pendant with a single stone the same color as her eyes, nowhere as expensive as it was expected from a Lannister, but still pretty enough to be worn at court. Still, Jeyne had a strange look in her eyes when she first saw it.

"What about it?" he asked, and she shook her head, that faraway look still in her eyes.

"Nothing," she said. "Just – I suppose I'm not much of a romantic person. Not like Sansa is."

Sansa Stark, Steffon's pretty betrothed. Caesar suppressed a sneer at the memory - he wondered how much potential the Stark girl had and wasted; how much different Sansa Stark would have been if she'd ever been taught anything else but singing and looking pretty.

"And why is that?" he asked Jeyne. He did not ask about Harrion Karstark, because he could have guessed by himself if he'd ever wanted to, and the girl merely shrugged.

"I don't know."

_The joys of young love_, Caesar thought to himself. _Funny to see how it always ends up in tragedy_.

"That is fine," he told Jeyne. "Neither am I."

But she still wore the pendant every day after that.

They met up in his rooms four more times after that first day; once, Caesar supposed, she was reasonably sure that he was serious in marrying her. Jeyne Snow, he realized, amused, was far more concerned with her reputation than most trueborn ladies he'd met.

She always came to him in the evenings, like she had the first time, when the sky was turning purple and his candles weren't lit yet. He let his tongue trail into her mouth and his hands on her gown, and sometimes below it; and he listened to the sound of her breath but never asked whether she'd done this before, because it was only embarrass the both of them, and wasn't something he was interested in knowing.

Jeyne was beautiful by the light of the candles when the twilight turned to night, and he told her so once or twice. She thanked him and blushed a little, which looked different from the way she flushed when she was angry, and he found himself wondering how would she flush if he were to tell her that he loved her. He did not, and she surely knew, but she would have enjoyed being told so all the same. _I'm not much of a romantic person_, she'd said, the way Tyrion might have said, _I don't really care much of what my father thinks of me_.

That was the first week; by the beginning of the second, Caesar had decided it was time to rush things along.

"Whenever we marry," Jeyne told him one day in his chambers. "Everyone's going to think that I am with child."

"They will," he agreed, because that was how people usually did think. "And imagine how surprised they will be when it will be clear that you are not."

She'd looked surprised at that. "There are ways –" Caesar began, in the same tone Tyrion would use to make a particularly embarrassing joke at the dining table.

"I know," she interrupted him; and only then she seemed to realize what she'd said. Caesar smirked at her and observed amused as her cheeks went pink. Jeyne's embarrassed flush was the same as when she was angry, and she stuttered. "What I mean is, I know what you want to say, but it's not what I – I am just surprised."

"That's not something I'd have expected you to say."

He supposed it might look odd – _I don't want to know what the septas teach young girls in the North_ – but he'd lived more than thirty years with no children, and could easily wait one more.

_Especially when there is something else to focus on_.

"When it comes to proving people wrong, I'd do anything," he told her; but still, she was right, and he figured it was time to clear things with Stark before too many people started to gossip.

"I could go ask to him tonight," he told Jeyne, ten days after his proposal.

"You could," she said. "Or you could go now."

It was the first time she'd truly surprised him. "Now?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Lord Baelish made one japes too many where he could hear, yesterday," Jeyne explained. "Father asked me what he'd meant about you around me, and I told him… I said that you would meet him in the godswood today, to talk."

"I can do that," Caesar agreed. And then he grasped one of her hands in his and leaned closer, not caring that they were in the gardens where anyone could see; because everyone would know by nightfall anyway. "But you do me a favor, Jeyne, and next time you tell anyone that I will be somewhere, please do ask _me_ first."

He left her there before she could answer and made for the heart tree in the godswood – because where else could Eddard Stark be?

The tree was a beautiful oak, nothing like the weirwood with the face carved in he'd seen at Winterfell, and Caesar found himself wondering just how much was Stark regretting his decision to come South.

"Lord Eddard," he called, as pleasantly as he could. "I'm told you were waiting for me."

Stark turned and nodded at him. "Ser," he acknowledged. To Ned Stark, Caesar was _my Lord_ at the council table and _Ser_ anywhere else, proper to the extreme. _How long, he thought, before Stark goes back North?_

He hoped soon. It would make things easier.

"It is quite simple," Caesar said, the same words he'd used with Jeyne. Stark would appreciate the honesty even more than his _daughter_ had and, today at least, he had no intention to lie. "I would like to marry your daughter."

"Jeyne," he added the last part as an afterthought, though it certainly wasn't needed. Caesar kept his eyes trailed on Stark, observed his face as it went from pleasant to surprised – Jeyne clearly had not told him much – and finally, to suspicious.

"Jeyne," Stark said. "Is my natural daughter –"

_Is she, really?_ "I am aware," Caesar interrupted. "She is also quite beautiful, and interesting to be around. I think the good outweighs the bad, my Lord."

He paused to give Stark the opportunity to speak again if he so wished, perhaps to ask something about Lord Tywin's opinion, as everyone else seemed prone to do; but Lord Eddard's despise for Tywin Lannister was apparently as strong as ever.

"And if I may," he continued when it was clear that Stark would only listen, for now. "She doesn't have to _stay_ a bastard." He saw the surprise in the other's eyes, and hurried to finish. "Certainly the king would not refuse your daughter a legitimation, not if she is not even going to keep the name past the wedding."

"It will not make a difference to me," he told him. "But it will to my father and his bannermen – it would make things easier."

_So much easier_.

Stark wanted to say yes, it was plain on his face. Every man would want a good life for his daughter, no matter whose daughter Jeyne actually was; and Eddard Stark was a better man than most.

He wanted to say yes and yet would not, not so soon, not with that guarded look in his eyes.

"But why her," Stark began to ask, and Caesar fancied he could understand what he really meant – what does she have that made you notice her, will someone else notice her as well?

When your adversary is in doubt, say the truth, Lord Tywin had told him once, before he'd gone to court for the first time. Truth had been rare in King's Landing at the time, even more than it was now; but that advice had always served him well.

"I told you," Caesar said. "She is very beautiful."

"Much like her mother."

Stark closed his eyes at that, and went still.

* * *

**A/N:** I'm not quite happy with this, but what the hell. There might be typos because it's four AM and I haven't checked, but I will soon. Also, there's a time jump ahead, so I'm debating whether to write a few lines about the wedding next chapter or just have the time skip altogether. Whatddaya think?  
BTW, next chapter is where things start to get plotty – and go really, really AU.  
As usual, let me know what you think!

**EDIT:** so, people said they wouldn't mind the time-jump; I went ahead and wrote it - so be warned. Three-year time skip next chapter.


	4. Lady Lannister

**Soooo, **look at me _updating_. This one was a pain to write. I don't like it, but it had to be done, so whatever. Also, there _will_ be a few more flashbacks later on.

**Edit: HELLO THERE,** there is a three-year time skip in this chapter. Some things happen, that won't be fully explained until chapter 5 - so you might want to consider wait until both chapters are out. Though I swear the chapter is not *that* complicated - if you go on reading, everything should be relatively clear by the end of the chapter.

* * *

**Act Four – Lady Lannister**

**{I}**

They rode into King's Landing through the Lion's Gate; as it was only fitting.

"Smile," Caesar told Jeyne, waving at the crowds as they passed by. He was a favorite of the people of King's Landing, of course, and she could see how much he enjoyed the attention. _Well_, she thought to herself, _of course he would_. For her part, Jeyne just looked around.

"Was it always so crowded?" she asked him, surprised. She had not been in King's Landing since the wedding, three years prior; and this new city in front of her eyes was much different from the one in her memories.

"It's the autumn," he explained. "People flee King's Landing in summer, from the heat, and they always come back when it's over."

Jeyne tried to picture King's Landing under the snow, and failed. She wondered how it would look like, the Red Keep and Baelor's and the harbor all painted white; and she wondered how many people would die when the cold came. _Winter is coming_, she almost thought; but those were the Stark words, and she hadn't be allowed to be Stark even when she believed herself to be one.

"It's very pretty," Caesar said, and she turned to look at him.

"What?"

"You were thinking about King's Landing during the winter," he repeated, a smug smile on his face; and Jeyne almost considered telling him that _no, she hadn't_, if only to wipe it off. "You can't feel the stench quite as much," and here he smirked. "And it _can_ be pretty, like a snow globe. I wager Lady Sansa would love it."

"A snow globe?" Sansa would. She wrote often as possible, and her letters were always beautifully crafted exercises of penmanship, about this and that other _wonderful_ thing she had seen and done; and Jeyne was sure she struggled for hours and hours to make the wording as elegant as possible. Sansa Stark loved pretty things; and so she did her pretty maiden's cloak and her pretty prince. _And good for her that she does_.

"_King's Landing_, silly," Caesar said. "And it's all the better for her."

_Someone has to_. Jeyne surely hadn't missed this city.

"Do you like the Rock, Jeyne?" he asked, all of a sudden; and she had to think about it.

Casterly Rock was the glowing mist on Lannisport in the morning and the fiery red of the sun setting in the ocean. It was the Hall of Heroes and the Stone Gardens, and the lions carvings on the grand walnut doors of the Lord's solar. Casterly Rock was life under Tywin's shadow and Joanna's ghost, and crimson and gold and a life that wasn't hers; but could be. Jeyne did not belong in Casterly Rock, but she hadn't belonged in Winterfell either, and that had never stopped her.

"I like it better than here," she told him then; and it was true, because in Casterly Rock she was Caesar's wife and not just Ned Stark's bastard.

Tyrion came looking for her as soon as they made it into the Tower of the Hand, in Caesar's chambers. The place was much different now from how it had been when Lord Eddard had lived there, Jeyne noticed, but she didn't mind.

"Dear sister," Tyrion greeted her; and she was almost sure the warmth in his voice was genuine and not a mockery. It was hard to tell, with Tyrion Lannister. "I hate a treat for you."

_I can see that_, Jeyne thought, taking in Tyrion's anticipatory smile. The last time he'd looked like that, he had ended up giving her a detailed account of King Robert's latest drunken scene, and it had been… interesting, to say the least.

"You have a visitor waiting for you," he said; and she blinked.

_Do I, now? _

"A visitor from Winterfell," Tyrion continued, and Jeyne flinched in surprise.

"From Winterfell?" she repeated. "But the king…" _wouldn't look kindly on any visitors from Winterfell, no matter how lonely Sansa must feel_. No, Eddard Stark would never again set foot in King's Landing until both he and the king lived, Jeyne was sure. _But perhaps…_

"Is it Benjen?" Jeyne asked Tyrion. "My uncle Benjen, of the Night's Watch?" She had missed Benjen most of them all, and the letters they exchanged were few and far between.

Tyrion's surprise was enough to tell Jeyne that she had been wrong, even before he started to speak. "It's Lord Stark's heir," he said. "Young Lord Robb."

"And the king let him come?" Jeyne blurted out, voice thick with disbelief. Robert had never been the forgiving type.

"The Lady Sansa asked him," Tyrion said. "And you know how His Grace can be, when it comes to a girl's sweet pleas."

"And where _is_ my visitor?" she asked. She had not seen Robb since leaving Winterfell, but by then they hadn't been close enough that he missed him. Not like she had missed Arya and Sansa and even Lord Eddard, and the freshness of the newly-fallen snow; but sometimes, the memories… _It will be good to see him_.

"You will," Tyrion told her; and Jeyne realized she had spoken out loud. "Tomorrow."

**{II}**

The next morning the sun rose on King's Landing hidden under a mantle of clouds, and the air was so still and warm that Jeyne found herself desperately wishing for some rain. _Sansa's pretty dress will be ruined, but it would be well worth it._

She saw Robb for the first time at the ceremony; and he'd become tall and broad-shouldered and every bit as handsome as she'd known he would. He stood in the place his father could not be, still and silent as the candles burned and the perfume of flowers grew to fill to Sept; and it hit her then, how alike Robb and Sansa looked, with their sky-blue eyes and auburn curls.

Jeyne thought of Arya then, her wild little girl; and realized that she too would be married soon. _In the North_, she hoped, _to someone who will make her happy_.

Sansa Stark left the Grand Sept as Princess Sansa Baratheon, the heavy golden cloak trailing from her shoulders, and Jeyne clapped and smiled with the others as she walked.

"She looks so happy, doesn't she?" she told Caesar, and found herself wondering just how much Sansa knew of the reasons why her betrothal to Prince Steffon had not been broken when the Starks had left King's Landing. _And what would she do if she knew? _Nothing at all.

Jeyne remembered her own wedding, and everything that had followed. It had been in King's Landing, same as Sansa's, because Lord Eddard would not travel west, no matter how long Lord Tywin had insisted on it. And after that, the _Lion of the Sea_ and Oldtown and Lys and Volantis; until the day Caesar had received Robert's message, to come back to court because he needed a new Hand.

"Jeyne," Robb called then; and he embraced her, this Tully-looking stranger with a voice so different from the boy in her memories.

"Robb," she said, and smiled at him. "How are you?"

"Well enough." He let her go then, and she could feel his eyes trailing on her body, from the pendant that had been Lady Joanna's to her silken gown, a crimson dress for a Lannister lady, paid for with gold from Casterly Rock. "You look good," Robb said, his voice odd; and Jeyne's smile only widened.

_Look at me_, she thought, and hoped he would tell of this to Lady Stark when he returned North. _You never expected me to raise so high, and here I am_.

"How is everyone?" she asked. "Father?"

Robb's eyes darted around slightly to the crowds in the Sept, to Caesar who sat in his father's seat and to Robert who'd asked him to. "Father is well enough," he said, sounding stiff; and Jeyne frowned. _Does it think I'm glad for what happened? _But no, it couldn't be.

"Bran has been squiring for the Blackfish," Robb continued, and there he smiled. "Arya says she misses you, and Rickon…"

_Rickon was barely three when I left and doesn't even remember who I am_, she though; but Robb was too kind to bring it up.

"And you, Jeyne?"

He sounded so much like his father had at her own wedding feast. _And you Jeyne?_ he'd asked, when she had pointed out how happy Sansa looked, dancing away with Prince Steffon. _Will you be happy, Jeyne?_

"I'm perfectly happy," she told Robb now, same as she had told Lord Stark then. _And I am_, she thought. _Am I?_

And then it came the bedding, and King Robert; and the day after that, a broken promise.

Sansa's own wedding feast was nowhere as scandalous, though considerably more elaborate. She and Caesar were sat next to Lord Renly Princess Lemore who, at eleven, had been deemed old enough to attend. Queen Alysanne, some six or seven seats on the right, had her mouth twist into a thin line every time she looked in their direction, and Jeyne wondered why was that. _She cannot possibly be still angry at me for what happened with the Starks. Not when Robb makes such a better target_.

Caesar didn't say a thing, but she was sure he _must_ have noticed. And so had Renly, who turned towards her with a warm smile.

"So, lady Jeyne," he began, "we haven't seen you in so long. Will you stay in the city after the wedding?"

The queen's gaze was cold as ice. "Oh, I don't know," Jeyne said. "I miss my daughter already, and it's not even been a month." And that she did. She was beautiful, her little Lya, with golden hair and Jeyne's eyes, and barely one year old.

"You should bring her to court," Renly said, and Jeyne smiled at him. _I think not_.

"Oh, you should bring her to visit Winterfell," the queen said, loud enough for king Robert to take notice. "To see Lord Stark."

"Lord Renly," Caesar cut in, and _finally_. Jeyne gave him a sideways glare, and he only smiled. "And where _is_ your brother? I was expecting him."

Renly laughed as if it were the funniest joke in the world. "Dragonstone. He writes that he's _too sick to travel_. Were anyone else, I'd believe it, but we all know how much Stannis just _loves_ weddings."

_Nowhere as much as Lord Eddard does_, she thought, remembering…

**{III}**

"What do you mean," Jeyne had asked him, confused. "My _mother_ wouldn't have wanted it? What mother doesn't dream of her daughter making a good match?" _And this is the best one there is_.

"To a Lannister," he had told her, softly. "Jeyne, my girl, your mother wouldn't have wanted a Lannister for you."

"I could have believed you if I _knew her name_," it was always the same story, since Jeyne had been old enough to ask. "And no woman would want her daughter to remain a bastard when she could become the Lady of the Rock instead."

"Jeyne…"

"Father," she'd answered. "I know."

_I'll tell you when you are married_, Lord Stark had told Jeyne once, when she had been seven or eight. She had found it terribly unfair back then, that she had to marry if she wanted to know who her mother was, back when her favorite dream was to become Winterfell's new master of horse when Hullen was too old; but she had come to see the sense of it later on.

_When I'm married_, _and bound to a husband who wouldn't let me go on a mad quest for my mother across the kingdoms_.

And now he did not want her married; and Jeyne did not know why. It could be genuine distaste for Lord Tywin, maybe, or truly her mysterious mother's will, or a simple excuse not to have to tell her; she did not know.

But Jeyne _did_ marry in the end, a true Stark at last for the few precious hours before she became a Lannister instead; and to a man who'd organized a bridal tour of the Free Cities for after the ceremony and gifted her a Dothraki dragonbone bow because she'd once told him she liked archery. _Perhaps he won't mind it if I go looking for my mother_.

But her wedding day had come and gone; and her father, honorable Lord Eddard whose word was a guarantee of honesty throughout the realm, hadn't told her a thing.

"You promised me," Jeyne had reminded him, making him flinch, but not talk.

"I'm sorry, Jeyne," and he _had_ looked sorry, but it hadn't been enough. "I cannot. Perhaps if you..." he had stopped there, but Jeyne had understood well enough. _Perhaps if you hadn't married a Lannister_...

But she had, and he'd broken his promise; and Jeyne had left five days after and not talked to her father since then. And when Caesar and Tywin had told her that he wasn't her father at all, she almost hadn't believed them, until she'd remembered his reluctance, and then everything had started to make sense.

She had never felt more betrayed in her life.

**{IV}**

"The queen doesn't seem to like me much."

"I think everyone noticed it, sweetling."

It was the day of Robb's departure, ten days after the wedding. He had arrived by ship and meant to leave the same way, but after meeting Loras and Garlan Tyrell he'd been persuaded to go with them instead, and visit Highgarden. _And their sister, too_, Jeyne had thought, amused; but she hadn't told Robb that.

Jeyne had waved at him as he rode away; and all that thinking of Loras Tyrell had brought Lord Renly to her mind. After that…

"I said," Jeyne repeated, slowly. "The queen doesn't like me, and I've done nothing to her. Why is that?" She bit on her lower lip. "Is it because of… Lord Eddard leaving King's Landing?"

Caesar laughed. "Oh, no."

"Ned Stark has nothing to do with that," he paused for a moment. "If you really want to know –"

"– I do."

"I think it might be because of me."

Jeyne closed her eyes for a moment at that, letting out a breath. _Of course it's him_, she thought; and wondered why she'd never thought of it before. Caesar was could be the perfect courtier, and Queen Alysanne was reportedly very unhappy in her marriage. _Who wouldn't be, married to Robert Baratheon?_

"Is this why she asked me to come South, the first time?"

He nodded. "I asked her to. And now…"

_Now you married me, and made a fool of her_. "She doesn't _dislike me_," Jeyne realized. "She probably hates me."

She told as much to Tyrion later that day, still furious.

"He should have told me sooner," she said, because Tyrion Lannister was the only person she could count on to take her side against his brother. "Before the wedding, at least."

"To be fair," Tyrion said, "you wouldn't have come in King's Landing if he had."

Jeyne only looked at him. "I would have. Now move."

They had been playing cyvasse, a game Jeyne had learned in Lys even before the Dornish made it popular. Tyrion would win, that was almost a given; but Jeyne's personal challenge was to make the game last as long as she could before he took all of her pieces.

"There," he said; and Jeyne looked down at the board to see that he had won again.

"Care for another?"

It was hours into the night already, but Jeyne wasn't tired.

"Another," she agreed.

They played until dawn, and in the morning a message arrived, saying that Stannis Baratheon was dead.

**{V}**

Jeyne had thought it a waste of time at first.

"It should be Robert first," she had told Caesar; but that had been only a month after her wedding, the king's behavior during the bedding still fresh in her memory.

"Robert is already killing himself with every drink he takes," it had been Caesar's dismissive response. "And if he dies first, who knows who could be the new Regent."

But that had been years ago, when Eddard Stark had been Hand of the King, admired by half the lords of King's Landing and despised by the other half; and there had been no way to know where the tide would go if ever Robert died. Three years later, things would have been easier had the king died first, but changing a plan already set in motions would be a needless waste – and the Lannisters, Jeyne had learned, did not like to be wasteful.

And now Stannis was dead.

"Will they let the daughter keep Dragonstone?" Jeyne asked. "Shireen, right?"

Gods, how she _hated_ to be kept in the dark. _Another good reason to leave King's Landing_, Jeyne decided, after yet another day spent doing nothing but exchanging pleasantries with Sansa, listening to her moon and gush about her new husband, all the while waiting for her own to be done with the council.

"And he is so _sweet_, Jeyne. And so kind," Sansa was saying. "I already knew if, of course, but these days he's been…"

_Poor Sansa_, Jeyne thought. No one had bothered to teach her something of the ways of the world, not prim-and-perfect Lady Stark; not the father who'd left her alone in the South so that she could have her dream wedding; not the queen or the ladies of the court after the Starks had fallen out of favor with the king.

"Is your lord husband kind with you, Jeyne?"

She raised her head at that, turning to look Sansa straight in the eyes. Her wide, blue, _innocent_ eyes. "Oh, yes," she told her. "Very."

Inspiration struck her then. "Perhaps you could come with me when I go back West," Jeyne said. "I'm sure you'd love it there. And you could finally meet Lya, it would be wonderful."

She was delighted at that; of course she was. Not one letter from Sansa arrived in which she didn't ask after her niece; and, Jeyne decided, between Stannis's sudden death and all the ones to come it would be a good thing to leave the city.

_Especially for a daughter of Ned Stark_, she realized later that day, when Caesar returned from the Small Council meeting, with news from Varys's man in the East. He'd written of a Dothraki horde sacking the city of Mantarys, burning it to the ground, and King Robert had laughed and asked Varys what was to him if some eastern city burned.

"And Varys told the king that the riders are led by Khal Drogo, Daenerys Targaryen's husband."

Daenerys Targaryen, the girl bride that Robert had wanted dead and Ned Stark had tried to save, the reason why the king no longer even wanted to hear the name of his former Hand spoken in his presence. Daenerys Targaryen, who had survived, in spite of everything.

"And they will be making for Volantis next, if it hasn't been sacked already, and the Seven Kingdoms after that."

Jeyne could almost imagine Robert's face at that, his worst nightmare come to life. His anger, too; and she was suddenly glad that Robb had already left.

"All in the name of his son, Rhaego."

_And so it starts._

* * *

**I really **tried to put some more character-centered things here, and to make it longer; but with the time-skip and all it would've been a horrible infodump. I'm more annoyed than Jeyne is that she doesn't have much to do here – I'm trying to keep the story believable, canon-wise, in that a young woman _wouldn't_ have enough power to Make Things Happen on her own, but it's… Argh. *me grinding teeth in frustration*

As I said, not the best chapter, but I'm SO glad that this is out of the way.

**Edit - re: time skip**. Things that happened in the three years & will be cleared up by next chapter: (1) Jeyne and Caesar married, (2) Robert and Ned had a falling out re:Dany like in canon, but worse, (3) Sansa remained in KL to marry the prince, but mostly because Ned wanted her to leave and Robert forbode it, (4) Drogo lived, Rhaego was born, and so was Jeyne's first child - a daughter.


End file.
